Opinions Editor
It’s the most glamorous time of the year! Dust off your evening gowns, roll out the red carpet and spray-paint your entire body gold because awards season is finally here. A perfect intersection of my two greatest loves: cinematic achievement and Hollywood decadence. The Academy Awards should be an ideal backdrop for real, critical film recognition; the only problem is the Academy.
This year’s Oscar Sunday is on Feb. 28, and the nominees are as strong as ever. Incredibly, however, not a single actor of color was nominated for an acting category, and almost every contender for Best Picture is white male-driven, despite phenomenal performances by the likes of Will Smith (“Concussion”), Idris Elba (“Beasts of No Nation”), Samuel L. Jackson (“The Hateful Eight”), Michael B. Jordan (“Creed,” for which Sylvester Stallone was actually nominated), and pretty much the entire cast of “Straight Outta Compton.”
Women were partly snubbed this year, too, with zero female directors nominated, and only two female-led films, “Room” and “Brooklyn,” up for Best Picture, even despite the overwhelming acclaim for lesbian romance “Carol.”
Speaking of which, Oscar voters’ next affront was to the LGBT+ community, as last year’s Academy darling Eddie Redmayne was nominated again for his portrayal of a transsexual woman in “The Danish Girl” – meanwhile, however, actual trans actresses are desperate for work. I’m afraid that awarding Redmayne will only perpetuate the harmful notion that trans women are just men performing in dresses.
Unfortunately, oversights like this are becoming too much of a pattern for Oscar voters. Lack of diversity among nominees has always been an issue, but this kind of consistent one-sidedness practically invalidates the awards.
The Academy Awards are the perfect American tradition. They’re a night of beautiful rich people judging each other and congratulating themselves, founded on the very tenets of democracy; our most glimmering vestige of a time when Clint Eastwood was still hot, and doctors literally prescribed people cigarettes. I can only hope going forward that the Academy figures out how to progress gracefully into this century, taking with it the prestige and the grandeur, and leaving behind the segregation.
As far as potential big winners this year: “Mad Max” and “The Revenant” have the most mainstream support for Best Picture. Leonardo DiCaprio of “The Revenant” seems to have the maniacal support of all of Generation Y for Best Actor, and normally if there’s one thing more consistent at the Oscars than subtle racism, it’s Leo losing the bid, but he might actually be the strongest contender this year. And as much as I love the idea of Brie Larson (“Room”) winning an Oscar, Cate Blanchett’s performance in “Carol” is definitely going to be the one to beat.
At their worst, the Oscars are a slightly outdated, politically charged, huge-scale popularity contest for people who have their own theme parks; but at their best, they are a celebration of film as an art, and as a universally impactful medium of expression.
And I’ll keep watching all four hours of it every year if it means I might see Jennifer Lawrence fall over again.
